FREE Two dwarf puffers, Enfield NH, pick-up preferred

[fishie111]

I have two dwarf puffers. I've had them for a few weeks, and thought I was prepared to care for them when I saw them at the LFS and caved. However, so far, these two eat only live snails and live adult brine shrimp. I'm not able to get live worms where I live. I can't get them to take frozen food. I'm currently keeping adult brine shrimp in a salt tank and also providing them some pond snails that I'm picking up at the LFS and storing in my shrimp tank. Due to family circumstances, I'm don't feel able to commit to the time to continue to maintain live food sources for them. I really don't want to bring them back to the LFS because they are feeding only flake and the dwarf puffers there are slowly weight.

Is anyone interested in these guys? I can consider shipping, but I'm not sure how well these guys ship and would need to research it.

 

[dougall]

What frozen foods have you tried?


I've never met a puffer that would shun frozen bloodworms, just defrost some in a little cup of tank water, and then get a few on the end of a toothpick and dangle them into the tank.

 

[fishie111]

I've tried frozen bloodworms a few times- they don't recognize them as food- at first they swam up to them and looked at them- after that, they completely ignored them. I've even dangled them from some long forceps and flicked them around to make them look alive. The puffers poked at them and then ignored them. I am wondering if maybe the frozen bloodworms are poor quality- when I was last at the LFS, I noticed that some of their frozen food had thawed- in response, they turned up the freezer. When I thaw the worms, some are brownish and some are bright red- I've never bought from another source- maybe the brown ones are an indication of lost quality?

 

[gtu2004]

My DP also does not eat frozen bloodworms unless she's super super hungry (if not fed for 3 days or so). I now carry constant live blackworms for her though. And 3she's always ready for those. If you can ship to NYC, please let me know. They probably can make it to NYC within a day or two by priority but may still need a heat pack. Thanks

 

[saram521]

Sounds like the frozen bloodworms you have are not good quality if many of them are brown. You want to avoid using frozen food that has been thawed and then frozen again. I've had dwarf puffers before and none of them ever refused bloodworms. If I were you, I'd get nice, red frozen bloodworms and try feeding them to your puffer again. In order to ship the puffers, you would need pressurized oxygen for their bag, and the shipping box would need to be styrofoam lined with a heat pack included. If you've never shipped live fish before, you probably shouldn't try your first go with puffers, as they're pretty delicate.

 

[gtu2004]

my DP doesn't really enthuse at Hikari nor San Francisco brand frozen bloodworms, which are pretty red. She doesn't eat brine shrimps either. Not live cherry shrimps as well. Obviously never flakes.

I'm not really surprised by OP's DPs. DP's personality really varies from individual to individual.

 

[fishie111]

Just to what gtu2004 said, while mine eat live brine shrimp they don't eat the one or two dead ones that often get dropped in with the live ones. They also don't eat cherry shrimp or glass shrimp, but they rip the legs off these larger shrimp and kill them, but they don't eat them.

 

[gtu2004]

I think shipping DPs only require a heat pack in this kind of weather. NH and NYC are close enough that I think they can survive 2 days in a bag.

What sex are they?

 

[fishie111]

I'm not sure on sex because they are still young but so far, it appears that one is male and one is female. One of them has spots that are blurring into a line, the other has distinct spots. I haven't shipped fish myself, but I have received many packages of shipped fish and am very familiar with how to package them. I would want to wait until Monday after Thanksgiving to ship for obvious reasons.

 

[platytudes]

Have you tried the seafood medley for human consumption that they sell frozen in the meat department? This usually has an interesting mix of seafood, something like squid, shrimp, crab, clam...in little bits and pieces. It's cheap and usually very tasty to fish, as long as it has been kept properly frozen. You might try putting dangling it on the end of a bamboo skewer or something and seeing if that doesn't stimulate a feeding response.